When I first moved to London nine years ago, I lived in Ealing for two years.  I went back there this weekend for the first time since moving away for the Ealing half marathon. The race started in Lamas Park, just a few hundred meters down the road from the flat I shared with my friend Helen. I was looking forward to a race through my old neighbourhood to see how things had changed.

I wasn’t a runner when I lived in Ealing. Helen used to sometimes go out for a jog round the park at the weekends while I stayed on the sofa watching back-to-back episodes of Come Dine With Me. Ealing didn’t have a half marathon back then, Parkrun didn’t exist either. I wondered whether they’d have encouraged me to start running a bit sooner if they had. A lot of things have changed since then, but I was glad to see that some had remained the same.

In the first mile, we passed our old flat, then turned onto the Uxbridge Road, past the Indian takeaway I’d visit on a Sunday night and my local pub. We passed the Iranian shop where me and Helen wandered in one Friday after getting off the night bus only to wake up the next morning the proud owners of two goldfish. Eight years on and one of those goldfish is still going strong having retired to live in the country with Helen.

The route turned left and that was where my trip down memory lane ended. We were in a part of Ealing I didn’t know. I started to get a sense of the size of the event as the road rose up in front of me and thousands of brightly coloured figures bobbed about in the morning sun. There were a lot of runners taking part.

As well as the old, I passed the new on my way round Ealing: I passed my friend Laura who was marshalling the event; and passed I lots of fellow Serpie runners (most of them ahead of me going the other direction on the out-and-back sections).

From miles five onwards the race got tough for me. I’d headed out expecting a flat course with a few bumps and had tore away from the start faster than was sensible. I didn’t remember Ealing having hills. One of the Serpies running past me paused for a quick chat and said: “I think they’ve found every hill in Ealing and taken us up it five times.”

I slowed down as my legs tired and watched the race unfold around me: people encouraged each other on, residents offered sustenance to tired runners and everywhere there were smiles, despite the lumpy route.

For the last couple of miles we were back into familiar territory. I passed my flat once again and told myself that if that goldfish could survive two house moves and make it to the ripe old age of eight, I could make it to the finish line. And after an unexpected lap of the park, knowing I was close to the finish line but not knowing where it was, that’s what I did finishing in 1:58 with more than 2,000 runners ahead of me.

To put that into perspective, four weeks earlier I’d run a half  in Austria 10 minutes faster without half as much trouble. That’s the difference a bit of sensible pacing and being prepared for the course can make. I made it to the pub with Josie, where I paced myself a little more wisely.